Has anyone's child done the M-Fun assessment?

[hazeyjane]

Ds had it today, and I don't really know much about it as an assessment tool, or what sort of results we will get? Any ideas??

In the parents questionnaire there were quite a few questions about behaviour and social communication. Does it purely assess gross/fine motor skill and function or could it feed into ASD assessments?

[zen1]

I've never heard of that particular tool so I googled and found this www.pearsonclinical.co.uk/AlliedHealth/PaediatricAssessments/Participation/MillerFunctionParticipationScales/ForThisProduct/critical-review.aspx. I'm sure you've already had a rake around the Internet though. From reading the info, it does seem to be more geared towards the motor skills / co-ordination disorder type of assessment.

[hazeyjane]

Thankyou, zen.I hadn't actually seen that, so it was interesting reading.

I think ds confuses them all a bit - no diagnosis, severe speech disorder, wears splints, ok fine motor skills, very wobbly gross motor skills, medical issues.

They didn't tell me what the assessment was going to be yesterday, but said they wanted an 'overview' as all our services have been switched over to Virgincare - I know lots of children are being discharged from a variety of services (who says the NHS is dying, eh?!) so was worried this may be why they wanted to have an overview.

[zen1]

Hmm, I am always suspicious when they want to 'overview' the services for the same reason. So far this year, the NHS (but funded by the LA for schools) has only been offering 3 SALT appointments per year if your child is in mainstream and has pulled out of offering any OT altogether. Schools are expected to buy it in for pupils that need it.

2 of my DCs make use of these sevices (one has weekly OT and SALT written into his Statement) and it is really concerning. I was told last year that the NHS OT wanted to withdraw therapy for DS3 ( the one with the Statement). Basically it was due to funding not based on his need. I put up a fight at the Annual Review and he kept it, but it is a constant worry.